Ghana’s Gregory Rockson has been named among Bloomberg’s New Economy Catalysts for 2022.
The Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of mPharma, a health startup headquartered in Accra has been working to ensure universal access to quality and affordable healthcare services across the continent using technology.
“It is a great honour for the work we’ve been doing at mPharma to get such recognition. This allows us to have a bigger platform to continue to make our case as to how we can build a better health system for the African continent,” he said.
Reflecting on the mPharma’s work over the years, he described the journey as “exhilarating,” explaining that despite the stark reality about the low survival rate of startups in Africa, mPharma’s continued existence has been made possible by its strong human capital base, curiosity and good shareholders that provide capital.
“We have an amazing human capital and we are a curious organization constantly challenging ourselves,” he said.
Rockson revealed that the company is looking to increase the number of patients it sees by eight folds in three years.
From 250,000 patients every month, it wants to reach 2 million patients monthly with its innovative health services offered through its Mutti pharmacies.
“These are tangible and measurable goals that we have set for ourselves as a company and we believe that if we are able to achieve them, we will build a modern day health system that provides value to communities more than what they have ever experienced,” he said.
mPharma has been on a progressive journey using technology to expand healthcare access across Africa.
For the past seven years, the company has established presence in 10 African countries including Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Zambia, Ethiopia, Malawi and Ghana where it has 13 of the country’s 16 regions covered.
Earlier this year, the company raised $35 million in equity and debt to expand its operations in West and East Africa.
According to Rockson, the company intends to hire more engineers as it continues to access new markets through acquisitions and partnerships.
“We [mPharma] are on the right path as a technology company but we have a long way to go. As you scale, being able to hire the strong engineers is a challenge,” he said.
By being among Bloomberg’s New Economy Catalysts for 2022, Gregory has been recognized as a trailblazer that is addressing complex issues using cutting-edge technology.
He joins 21 other catalysts to get the platform to form strategic business partnerships, gain insight and perspective into cutting edge technologies and high-level policy and finance and receive peer-to-peer leadership and mentoring throughout the year.
The Catalysts will convene at the Bloomberg New Economy Catalyst Retreat for a special day of programming at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum, which will focus on high-level discussions to develop solutions for a more sustainable and equitable economy.
Gregory Rockson says mPharma is building an African continent where everyone has access to basic health services regardless of their socioeconomic background and is hopeful that following the fellowship programme, the company will have a Mutti pharmacy in every vicinity in each country it works in.
“In the next 3 years we want to increase the number of Mutti pharmacies we operate from about 500we operate today to over 2,300 Mutti pharmacies across the 10 African countries that we work in,” he stated.
Mutti pharmacies are ‘mini-hospitals’ that offer a wide-range of health services including medical consultation, diagnostic and telehealth services.
